Qualifier

We make lots of statements every day that we don't necessarily mean to apply to every human being everywhere. But in the language of logicians like Stephen Toulmin, all unqualified statements could have inserted in them the words all, every, never, none, always, and so on, without changing the statement. For example, I might say,

Books by Anthony Trollope are fun to read.

Stephen Toulmin would rewrite that sentence as

All books by Anthony Trollope are always fun for everyone to read.

I would consider defending some version of my statement, but I would never try to defend Toulmin's version of my statement. Most folks stating claims for arguments try not to get themselves into the position of defending a statement that always applies to everyone everywhere, so most claims will include qualifiers. These are often little words like some, most, many, in general, usually, typically, and so on. They may be little words, but their value to an argument is immeasurable.